A. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to incinerators and especially to stationary, vertical incinerators of the regenerative type.
B. Prior Art
Stationary incinerators using the heat-regenerative principle are known in the art. U.S. Pat. No. 3,895,918 which issued to James J. Mueller on July 22, 1975 teaches and claims incineration apparatus in which there is a central, high-temperature combustion chamber which communicates with three or more heat-exchange sections arranged around it. Each heat-exchange section of that apparatus includes a large number of heat-retaining elements confined between two substantially vertical, apertured retaining walls, often made, in the past, of metal. Inlet and outlet valves are associated with each section at the tops and bottoms thereof and the gas flow was generally horizontal. In my co-pending application, Ser. No. 06/391,110, filed June 23, 1982, vertically-oriented incineration sections were shown as arranged either in adjacent wedge-shaped configurations, or in a generally L-shaped configuration. There were inlet and outlet ducts and corresponding inlet and outlet valves associated with each section toward the bottom thereof in the spaces below the heat-exchange beds. A common combustion chamber was located atop all the sections. Flow of gas was primarily vertical through each vertical section and horizontal through the combustion chamber. In that application, in order to prevent industrial effluents from substantially short-circuiting the high temperature combustion zone, the up-coming effluent was introduced as a relatively high-velocity jet into the upper part of the combustion zone. This was accomplished by providing a cover for each section with an aperture specifically designed for that purpose. The jet increased turbulence in that zone for better mixing and helped to prevent relatively unimpeded lateral unprocessed or incompletely processed flow at the bottom of the zone from one section to the top of the adjacent section.
While the invention described in that application was successful in producing the desired result, the present invention offers other attractive alternatives, both in terms of relative simplicity and efficiency, to those former embodiments.